What we do

We work to increase the participation of women in open technology and culture through education: raising awareness, writing simple HOWTO guides, teaching workshops for both men and women, and helping women learn concrete skills. All of our work is free of charge and freely reusable under Creative Commons licenses. We are entirely funded through individual and corporate donations.

What we’ve accomplished so far

Future programs

With the support of donors like you, the Ada Initiative can take on more ambitious, higher impact programs. To find out how you can help, see our support page. Programs we would like take on include:

  • Ada’s Careers: A career development community for women in open technology and culture
  • First Patch Week: Match women with mentors to create and submit their first open source patch, with mentors’ time donated by Ada Initiative partner organizations.
  • Resources for event organizers: Help organizers reach out to female speakers, attract more women to your event, and broaden your audience in general.
  • Research: Quantify trends in women’s participation in open technology and understand the underlying causes.
  • Recruiting: Help employers make their working environment more attractive to women and hire more women in open technology and culture roles.
  • Gender diversity program design: Share best practices and avoid common pitfalls for gender diversity programs and initiatives.

Watch Ada Initiative co-founder Mary Gardiner speak about our plans (recorded June 30th, 2011):

If your organization is particularly interested in one of these programs and would like to discuss sponsoring or partnering with the Ada Initiative to raise its priority, please contact us at donors@adainitiative.org.